de mortuis nil nisi bonum
by ferox
Summary: Voldemort is not above necromancy. Dumbledore’s cast-offs make valuable tools for a Dark Lord. The trick lies in convincing the tools that being useful is better than being dead. Eventual slash.
1. 1

**De mortuis nil nisi bonum**

(speak nothing but good of the dead)

**Author: **ferox 

**Disclaimer:** Characters and setting not mine. J.K. Rowling's, her publishers', and Warner Brothers'. I make no money off of this.

**AN: **Cookie of the longer fic.  This is only the beginning. 

**1. **

A breath rattled in Sirius's chest, his first in too long.  The air burned through his veins, making him cough as though from strong drink.   The second breath was exhaled in a whispered croak.  "Fuck you." 

The reply was no louder, but far more smooth, high and sibilant.  "After all I've done for you?" 

_....Killed my friends?  Tried to kill my godson?  Which are you talking about?_

"You're alive because of me, you know.  Did you like it behind the veil then?  Because I could put you back.  Tell me, was being left alone with nothing but your mind more bearable than Azkaban?  Was it better when you couldn't feel the pain to prove that you were alive?" 

Sirius didn't answer.  

"Really, Black, I don't understand your reasoning."  Voldemort leaned his chin on one hand, such a casual, deceptively human gesture.  "They didn't come to rescue you." 

At this, Sirius's head snapped up, eyes narrowed.  "I was dead," he spat. 

"Are you now?"  Voldemort continued.  "If I could bring you back, surely you realize that Dumbledore has that power himself.  Perhaps even your godson could have done so with his clever little friends, though I doubt he'd be permitted by the old fool.  Can you imagine what torture it must have been for him wondering if he could bring you back from beyond the veil only to be stopped at every turn?"  The red eyes watched Sirius, raking over the new robe draped over his shivering body, hair still short but dull, lifeless.  "They didn't come for you in Azkaban either, did they?  And I've been told that you were quite alive there." 

_They thought I'd betrayed James and Lily to you. _ The words didn't bear speaking.  If Voldemort wanted an answer, he could bloody well rip it out like all the others. 

"They found it so easy to believe that you were the one to betray, didn't they?  Did anyone question it Sirius?" 

"Black."  

"No, I think if we're going to play at this intimacy, I may as well call you Sirius."  The thin lips curved in a smile, but only a small one. "Did anyone question the Ministry for you?  Fight for a trial under veritaserum perhaps?" 

Slowly, reluctantly, Sirius shook his head.  They hadn't.  For fifteen years, they hadn't.  

"I'm certain it would have cleared you," he said.  "Likely, it still would if it weren't for the problem of you being, legally speaking, dead.  Your house has been turned over according to your will, as has your Gringotts vault.  I would imagine that the Order found you to be more useful as a martyr than a living madman." 

Sirius didn't look at him, but behind his eyes, something small and uncertain withered and died. 

Voldemort smiled and stood.  "I'll have a meal brought to you--it's astonishing how years in incorporeal form can whet the appetite."  At the door, the Dark Lord paused, and looked back at the man still crumpled on the floor.  "In case you're wondering," he added casually, "Potter did try.  You would have been proud how deeply your death affected him.  It's a pity Dumbledore held him back and let me get to you first.  Again."  The door closed behind him, locking under a simple charm—simple, that is, for a man with a wand.

It took five minutes for Sirius to find his voice. 

And another five to find his words.  

"Actually, I'm not hungry,"  he rasped out, focusing on his palms against the cold floor, fingertips against the rough stone, tendons flexing against bone with the pull of muscle.  _Push._

The world spun, and Sirius righted himself against the cot, deciding that the world was a much more pleasant place with his eyes closed.  It was worse than coming out of Azkaban.  After being deprived of his senses, having them back all at once -- hurt. 

One at a time then. 

Touch.  That was the easiest, and the most difficult.  Impossible to avoid.  The bed was soft-hard against his back, the board digging into his shoulder blades while the mattress tempted with softness at his neck.  He let his head fall back against it with a sigh and felt the air stir against his lips, warmer than the cool of the room.  He supposed he should be thankful that the room had a noticeable temperature rather than that -- nothing -- behind the veil.  

He felt the hair on his arms stand on end with his shiver. 

Voldemort had been right.  Azkaban was better--at least there, he'd been able to claw at himself and remember he was alive.  Voldemort was right.  The thought left him queasy, and he decided to demote thinking to a sense--one that would come last.  

He slowed his breath, focusing on the quiet sound and the way it melded together with the fiery pull of air through his lungs.  It rattled, near the end, and wheezed faintly when he let it out.  Fluid perhaps?  A result of not breathing for -- how long had Voldemort said?  Sirius pushed the thoughts down firmly--he had other senses to reclaim first.  Beyond the rasping of his breath, he could hear the faint dripping of water, and nothing else.  A dungeon then.  

Smell.  He couldn't smell anything.  No.  That was a lie.  He could smell the stone.  Smell the water he knew was dripping.  He turned his head towards the mattress, and smelled clean linen.  He was to be well kept then.  There was no stench of human filth.  He wasn't certain yet if that surprised him or not, its lack.  

Taste. Would have to wait.  Even in his state, Sirius didn't relish licking the rocks.  There would be dinner, Voldemort had said and he didn't see a reason to expect poisons, not if the Dark Lord was to be believed that he'd gone to the trouble of bringing Sirius back. He doubted it was only to kill him again. 

Sirius found himself oddly reluctant to open his eyes--vision would leave him one sense closer to thinking and he wasn't ready for that.  Instead, he groped behind himself, pulling his body onto the mattress and curling there, arms around his legs, willing the change to happen.  

It didn't, and for the first time, threads of fear began to overwhelm the chill of hopelessness.  

He must have whimpered when the door opened, and the smell of food altered the cool clean dungeon scent, because he was answered.  "There are anti-transfiguration charms on this room, Black.  Don't concern yourself with the mutt." 

Sirius's eyes shot open, and narrowed, focusing with the pinpoint intensity of a twenty year grudge.  "Snape."  The word came out as a low growl.  

"I see you haven't lost your memories along with your mind.  How convenient."  Snape stood before him, looking as at home in this dungeon as in any.  Sirius felt his lips pull back in an approximation of Padfoot's snarl.  

"I see you're still a bottom feeder, Snape.  Couldn't stay away from the dank and dark anymore?" 

"Eat your meal.  It's not poisoned."  A lean smile pulled at thin lips, and Snape added with a touch of smugness.  "I'd know." 

"I don't want to eat." 

Snape didn't move, but a curl of disgust wound through his voice.  "Don't be more of an idiot than utterly necessary.  A hunger strike will serve no purpose but angering the Dark Lord." 

"And you care about that?"  Sirius didn't bother to keep the sneer from his voice, almost absurdly grateful for something so familiar as hating Snape. 

"Seeing as I am living in his manor and have no wish to suffer Cruciatus for my failure to take proper care of you, yes, I do."  Severus sat in the room's sole chair, arms folded across his chest.  "Eat." 

"Are you going to sit there and make sure I do?" 

"Yes." 

Sirius snorted, rolling over and curling up around the emptiness in his belly.  Hunger, he'd found, was something a man could get used to easily.  "Sorry to disappoint you Snivellus.  You've spoilt my appetite."  

Even facing the wall, Sirius could hear the sharply indrawn breath, and controlled exhalation. "You are eating, Black, whether I must chew for you and spit the food down your throat under petrificus totalus or not.  Do not mistake me--I've done far worse." 

"Why not use the Imperius and make it easier on both of us?"  Sirius muttered, reaching for the plate and pulling it into his lap, ignoring the ravenous growl from his midsection and shoved a piece of meat into his mouth.   

"I would not sully my mind with the touch of yours."  Snape's eyes followed each movement, and he remained in his chair, silent save for the impatient tapping of one finger against his sleeve.  "Slow down, you mangy mutt.  You'll give yourself a stomach ache." 

"My stomach," Sirius said, and shoved in another mutinous mouthful, chewing viciously.  "Mind telling me why I'm here?" he asked around the mouthful, obscenely pleased when Snape looked away in disgust.  

"Our Lord thought that your potential was going to waste." 

"Can't get more wasted than dead."  Sirius paused.  "And that's _your Lord.  Not mine.  Yours.  So when'd you switch teams again?  What is this--third time? Fourth?  Does it get old, Snivellus?"  Sirius paused only to take a long drink from the flagon of water, watching the colour rise in Snape's cheeks with an artist's eye.  One more push should do.  _

He didn't get the chance as Snape interjected smoothly, and with a great deal more calm than Sirius was expecting. 

"Our Lord," he began.  "You may as well get used to it, Black.  You owe him your life, I'm afraid."  The sneer that accompanied this declaration was worn smugly.  "As you should recall, life debts know no personal favouritism." 

"You upholding yours by serving the Dark Lord then?" 

"My life debt with Potter is finished."  

"So now you're going to go and get him killed?" 

"You're not eating, Black," Snape answered, resuming the earlier topic without reply.  "I've been working for Lord Voldemort all along.  This is still round one."  The thin smile returned, and Snape watched with obvious pleasure as Sirius choked on his mouthful of food.  "I did warn you to take smaller bites."  

"You _bastard!  You've been betraying the Order the whole time you've-" _

"The Order hardly mattered for the 12 years you were in Azkaban.  For that length of time, I'd say you did quite enough betraying for all of us." 

"I never followed him, Snape."  

"Of course not.  You betrayed him too."  

Shoving away his food, Sirius rolled over again in bed.  "I never owed him anything." 

"Your blood owes him." 

"Oh, piss off, Snape," Sirius said tiredly, no longer having to feign exhaustion.  His brain was still too fogged from the sudden rediscovery of life to deal with riddles.  Or Riddle. 

Rather than leaving, Snape leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees and eyeing Sirius intently.  "You could make use of this you know, Black."  Waiting until he had the man's attention, Snape continued.  "You owe a life debt to Lord Voldemort--and he's accepted it.  You.  What he offers hasn't changed.  Power.  Safety."  Snape's lips quirked with the irony of the offer.  "The Order is all defensive strikes as you well know.  Do you think they'd come looking for you here?  There'd be no false trial in Lord Voldemort's new order, Black.  No accusations."  He leaned back, watching Sirius more narrowly.  "If you please him, he may allow you to kill Wormtail as a gift." 

Sirius's eyes narrowed as the offer struck an unexpected chord.  "I don't want him dead. I want him in Azkaban with Dementors sucking on his head." 

"I'm certain our Lord could arrange that as well.  Perhaps with anti-transfiguration wards on his cell?"  Snape's eyes shifted, taking in the room around them with significant intent.  "Do you like them?"  

Involuntarily, a shudder ran down Sirius's spine, and he refused to answer, instead choking down a mouthful of water.  

"They seem effective." 

"Better hope they are," Sirius muttered.  "If they weren't, I'd have ripped your throat out by now." 

"I'll be certain to carry this news to our Lord."

"I already told you, Snape-" 

"Yes, and it's become tiresome.  Do listen, Black.  You're not only pureblood, you're of the elite.  You could challenge Malfoy for sheer purity of lineage if it came to that." 

Sirius grunted assent, unconscious inborn arrogance, and cut off another hunk of meat.  "Why'd I want to?  Malfoy can have it.  You're all going to lose anyway." 

"Actually," Snape said, quietly.  "We're winning." 

They stared at each other in silence.  

"You must be joking."  

"No," Snape said.  

"You're exaggerating!" 

"I am not."   

An oily chill slid down Sirius's spine, and he found himself asking the one question he didn't want an answer for.  "How long have I been gone?" 

"One year, last night," Snape answered promptly.  "The spells Lord Voldemort chose required that they be cast on the anniversary of your death." 

Sirius didn't hear the last of Snape's words over the sudden numbness that filled his mind, vibrating gently around the edges.  He felt ill.  "Harry?" 

"Survived his ill-conceived adventure into the Ministry, pitched seven kinds of fits over your apparent demise and the utter failure of Dumbledore to allow him any chance at having you back."  

Sirius's breath hitched.  "He went to Dumbledore?" 

"And accused the man of all that he should have accused him of years ago." 

"Was he expelled?"  Sirius closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly.  

"Don't be daft, Black.  He's needed.  He was distraught at the time.  Of course he hasn't been expelled."  Snape sneered, a deep loathing infusing his tones.  "You should know by now that Dumbledore never throws away anyone who might prove useful."  

Unlike you, the unspoken thought added.  You outlived your usefulness. 

"How is he now?" 

"Withdrawn," Snape answered.  "Understandably so, I should think." 

Sirius looked up, surprised at the unexpected show of brief sympathy from the Potions Master.  

"Don't look surprised, Black.  He went to everyone he could think of after you died; each turned him down.  I believe he was told from several quarters what a singularly bad idea it would be to attempt your resurrection—even Lupin could give him no more than cold assurances that Dumbledore acted for the best.  He lost more than a godfather then.  He lost his faith." 

"It wasn't his fault!" 

Snape's sneer thinned, and his eyebrow arched elegantly upwards.  "Of course it was.  Though I'm sure you share in some blame, the way you went running off after him." 

"He could have died!" 

"Indeed, he could have.  You did." 

Sirius deflated, sitting back hard, and watching Snape with wide eyes, feeling ill.  "Are you still teaching?" 

"I retain my position." 

"Let me guess.  You're supposed to be spying for Dumbledore right now, aren't you?" 

Snape chuckled, standing and returning his chair to its corner, his boots clicking softly on the stone.  "Can't put a thing past you, can I, Black?" 

But rather than rise to the retort, Sirius slumped against the wall behind his bed, eyes bruised and dark in their hollows.  "What's he like in class now?" 

Snape hesitated before answering, black eyes assessing as he chose his words.  "Studious," he replied at last.  "Intent. Focused.  Utterly unlike a Potter should be."  

Sirius buried his face in his hands, and Snape quietly gathered the tray and glass, straightening.  

"Consider the Dark Lord's offer, Black."  The Potions Master sounded almost sympathetic.  "There are worse fates than taking the dark mark.  And he does offer more for you, at this moment, than the ministry ever has.  Perhaps he would return your godson to you as a reward for services rendered."  

"Just go, Snape."  

"I realize it may be asking too much, but do try to think."  

The click of the door as it shut behind Snape sounded ominously final.

*** 

next chapter

*** 

Feedback welcome at ferox@contortus.net or cave_canem on lj. 


	2. 2

**De mortuis nil nisi bonum**

(speak nothing but good of the dead)

**Author: **ferox 

**Disclaimer:** Characters and setting not mine. J.K. Rowling's, her publishers', and Warner Brothers'. I make no money off of this.

**AN: **Never let it be said I don't change my mind.  _De mortius nil nisi bonum_ has become a chapter fic.  Shorter chapters than the Dark Creatures series though I should think.  

**2.**

If it had been left to Sirius, he would have remained on that mattress for the rest of his days.  It may not have been brave. It may not have been honourable. It may not have been Gryffindor or even Black, but that had its own charm.  It was what Sirius wanted right then more than anything in the world--a moment's peace.  

Unfortunately, that moment's peace was not to be.  

His spine stiffened with the creaking opening of the door, but he didn't move.  When all a man had left to him was his own will, he tended to exercise it even in the trivial everyday things.  

"You didn't eat your bread."  

Snape. 

He supposed he should be glad that it wasn't Voldemort.

"Or touch the water.  Haven't we discussed this, Black?" 

Sirius's tongue felt dry and swollen, heavy in his mouth.  His salivary glands made a pitiful attempt at watering with the mention of drink.  

Snape snorted.  "Never did think you were as bright as they said.  How did you manage the grades?  Buy them?"  Behind him, Sirius heard Snape moving around the room, handing the breakfast tray to someone in the corridor with a low murmur, and once again carrying the narrow-backed chair across the room, sitting almost close enough to Sirius to touch.  So it was to be another observed meal.  Sirius's lips curved in a sneer.  How like Snape to let him starve just enough to be miserable but not enough to render him useless.  "Or did you copy Potter's work like that pathetic little rat you befriended?" 

"They all copied my work." 

"Really?  Fancy.  A small miracle then that James came first in our year.  Perhaps he was holding out on you too. It does seem to be the pattern of your life."  Snape spoke casually, the words without any special venom to them, for all that they stung.  "Being used, then passed over.  Tell me, as I've always wondered, did you lose out to Lily as well, finishing a distant second in Potter's affections?  There was a rumour in our year to that effect."  

That was going too far--even Remus knew he wasn't to open that particular wound.  "Fuck off, Snape."  

"Better a jester to the golden boy than nothing.  It's remarkable, in hindsight, how like Pettigrew you were.  Do you know I see your face every year in my new students?  Your face, Lupin's, Potter's, Pettigrew's.  It's been enlightening to say the very least.  I suppose you knew no better at the time, feeding off of Potter's adventuresome spirit.  Tell me, Black, is it true pure blood thins with the generations?  I wouldn't imagine there was much left in the Black line by the time you came along.  Perhaps it's best for the wizarding world at large that you failed to breed before conveniently dying on us." 

That one pierced like a bolt through his heart, and Sirius struggled against the blankets until he was sitting up, glaring back at Snape.  "Is there a point to feeding me twenty five years worth of insults while I'm too ill to properly grind a few inches off your nose against the nearest wall?" 

"Yes," Snape said calmly, sliding the table closer to Sirius.  "And I seem to have accomplished it.  Do eat.   The sauce has an unpleasant tendency to congeal when left too long at room temperature." Sirius stared at the sudden shift from goading to reasonable in Snape's tone. The sudden cold slide of suspicion must have shown on his face, for Snape continued.  "You have known me for 27 years.  You know that I do what is necessary when it becomes necessary." 

"No more threatening to chew for me?"  Mechanically, Sirius wrapped his fingers around the fork and stabbed it into the closest cut of meat. 

"Don't be disgusting," Snape said. 

Sirius shrugged.  "You brought it up, not me." 

"Desperate times.  You should know that they often require us to do what we would rather not." 

Sirius chewed, trying to ignore that the food was, really, actually quite good, enough so that his stomach cramped for more as each taste burst on his tongue as if for the first time.  He forced himself to eat slowly.  Death, like Azkaban, had its way of dulling the memories, and he was still finding reality too sharp to stomach for long at a time.  He kept his eyes on the plate. 

"Have you given further consideration to our lord's offer?"  

He had.  Enough that there was no energy left in him to reject the presumption.  "Tell him he's got the wrong man and the one he's thinking of died in Azkaban.  A life bond is a matter of honour, Snape.  You should have enough evidence by now to convince him I'm not an honourable man." 

"And then what?" 

Sirius looked up at the quiet tone with which Snape spoke to find the Potions Master watching him with a neutral gaze.  "What do you mean?" 

"Do think, Black.  What would you have him do then?  You're useful or you're dead." 

"I've been dead." 

"And now you're not.  Are you simply going to throw this away out of petulance?" 

"Petulance?  Excuse me for thinking that binding myself to a man who's elevated Muggle slaughtering to a holiday sport is a fate worse than death!" 

"Don't be so dramatic."  Snape sniffed, the depth of disgust conveyed with that simple sound was impressive.  Must have to do with the size of the nose, Sirius decided vindictively.  "This is war.  There will be casualties whether you've raised a wand or not.  However, should you accept that you are not in the best position to refuse our Lord's offer entirely, you may be in a position to bargain for that which you find the most important." 

"And that would be?" 

"Potter." 

The meat felt like lead in Sirius's stomach, and he felt his lip curl, baring teeth--the action felt the same whether he was dog or man.  "You know the prophecy as well as I do." 

"I know it better." 

Sirius snorted. 

"I also know that prophecy is a matter of interpretation.  There is no time limit on who must die, and when." Snape's voice quieted again, almost gentle.  "The battle between Light and Dark has been likened to a chess game, and like a chess game, may be played to a stalemate by a skilled strategian." 

"Neither can live while the other survives, Snape."  Chess.  Figured Snape would have to pull the intellectualism on him while his brain was still too fogged to process higher concepts.  His head was beginning to ache. 

"Funny words, 'live' and 'survive' Black." 

"They seem pretty clear to me." 

"Take you, for example.  Would you say then that you are strictly alive?"  

"I seem to be breathing, eating, sleeping.  And unless this is an incredibly bad dream, I'm talking to you.  No--this can't be a dream," Sirius sneered.  "If it was a dream, you'd either have shut your nose in the door or turned into a proper dream man by now."  Snape arched an eyebrow, and said nothing.  "Blonde, for starters.  Maybe a little grey.  I could handle brown hair-"

"Spare me your werewolf fantasies.  I have no intention of turning into Lupin to make you feel more at ease."  Having interrupted Sirius's train of thought, Snape continued smoothly.  "Would you, now, say, that you have survived?" 

Sirius opened his mouth to answer in a similarly sarcastic vein and then stopped.  

"Yes, you understand.  You were, in the most literal sense, dead.  You did not survive." 

"What are you suggesting?" 

Snape's lips curved and he steepled his fingers together, elbows resting on the arms of his rigid chair.  "Merely that terms of prophecy are more flexible, and perhaps more misleading than they may appear at first reading."  He watched Sirius in silence a moment longer before speaking.  "You are intelligent, Black, or at least you once were.  Put your mind to use, and perhaps you'll win freedom both for yourself and your godson."  He looked as if he wanted to say more, but then closed his mouth with a decisive click. 

Freedom for him and Harry--funny way of putting it.  Not victory.  Not safety for the wizarding world--none of the heroic language of the Order, just freedom.  He considered Snape more closely. "What do you care about Harry?  Or me?" 

Snape's lips thinned.  "I care about myself.  Or have you forgotten that I was sorted into the house of self-preservation?" 

"Why should I believe you?" *Because you want freedom yourself, don't you? 

"Because I'm all you've got.  And at the moment, my own future is tied intimately with your decision to accept your Lord's offer with a minimum of fuss."  

Sirius let out a sudden barking laugh--he was right.  "Your life's tied to getting *me to follow Voldemort? What'd you do to piss him off that much, Snape?"  His stomach tightened, hoping Snape hadn't ranked complete disclosure from his Lord. 

Snape's eyes hardened, the fine lines of age around their corners deepening with the tension of muscle beneath.  "Rather, Black, ask how much faith he has in my abilities that he would assign me to so critical a task despite our history together.  Don't fool yourself into believing that it was a simple matter to bring you back through the veil, you brainless mutt.  Nothing in Necromancy is accomplished without an even exchange."  His lips stretched, curved, in an expression that was only a little too evil to be a smile.  "Now, your cousin Bellatrix--she pissed him off." 

"Bella-?"  Confusion washed over Sirius's face.  "I'd think she'd have become his favourite follower."  

"A madman only has so much patience for the mad."  Snape shrugged elegantly.  "They make terribly unreliable henchmen." 

"What happened to her?"  

Snape chuckled.  "Which part of her?" 

"You're joking." 

"Oh no," Snape said with some satisfaction.  "No.  I don't need to joke." 

"Why Bella? Why not some muggle?" 

"Blood that calls to your blood," Snape said simply.  "And the Malfoys are more valuable to him intact."  He shifted then, leaning his chin against one hand, the other arm folded elegantly across his lap, fingers loosely toying with the hem of his coat.  "He must see something in you that Dumbledore missed to find you so valuable.  I'm certain I can't imagine what." 

Sirius could imagine what Voldemort saw in him--with vivid clarity. 

Sirius was staring past Snape, at the blank wall behind, the memory of Bellatrix's face as she cast Stupefy at him still as vivid as if it had only just happened.  He would have killed her.  He wanted to kill her.  

Voldemort had- what?  Done it for him?  Or taken it away from him?  

And if Voldemort saw the same thing in him now that he'd seen twenty years before, he might well be sorely disappointed, and some part of Sirius still didn't want to experience Voldemort's disappointment that personally. 

"Is there something you've been keeping from us all this time, Black?"  Snape's voice curled around the edges of Sirius's hearing.  "Was your insistence that I've been a traitor smoke and mirrors for your own treachery?" 

"No." 

"You realize it doesn't matter now if it was," Snape said, and Sirius could see him shifting his legs, settling his robes to get more comfortable.  "We're both on the same side."  He chuckled, the sound dry as if disused.  "Perhaps we have been all along--traitors to everyone, spies for everyone, loyal to ourselves."  For once, Snape's voice was not mocking, and he stood.  "I don't believe there's dishonour in wanting to survive a war, Black.  Or in wanting your godson to survive--whether you believe it of me or not, I'm not fond of fatalities, and I don't want to see Potter dead, but a great deal of his safety is now completely out of my control." 

Sirius didn't answer--couldn't.  He didn't have an argument for it other than "it's the coward's way out" but was it really brave to keep dying? 

He was still lost in his thoughts as Snape silently gathered the empty tray and cup once more and left the room.

*** 

next chapter

*** 

Feedback welcome at ferox@contortus.net or cave_canem on lj. 


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